The film is based on the true story of Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman, an enslaved women who challenged her enslaver for her freedom in a court of law. Her case would change the course of history, 80 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Alethea Root is directing the film from a screenplay based it on the book A Free Woman on God’s Earth by Jana Laiz and Ann-Elizabeth Barnes.

Spencer made her film debut in A Time To Kill and made her Hollywood breakthrough portraying Minny Jackson in The Help, which earned her an Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has maintained critically-acclaimed roles in films such as Fruitvale Station, Get on Up, Black or White, Smashed, Snowpiercer, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, and Zootopia. She starred in Hidden Figures, where she portrayed Dorothy Vaughan, earning Academy Award, Golden Globe and SAG nominations for Best Supporting Actress, and was recently seen on the big screen in Gifted. Spencer also joined the cast of upcoming a limited series revolving around the life of entrepreneur and social activist Madame C.J. Walker, and is set to star in Lucealongside Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Kelvin Harrison Jr in addition to Blumhouse Productions’ twisted thriller Ma.

About The Author

The HBR Media Team is a collective group of black women filmmakers, writers, and studio/network executives who are passionate about bringing visibility to women of African descent working in film and television.